


the duplicate of a man much better than I

by CaptainHoney, saveourtiredhearts



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Steve Needs a Hug, another supersoldier, compliant up to and including the winter soldier, so does bucky, some badly explained unrealistic science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 03:11:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11245116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainHoney/pseuds/CaptainHoney, https://archiveofourown.org/users/saveourtiredhearts/pseuds/saveourtiredhearts
Summary: Steve feels isolated from the Avengers, from Sam, and from the rest of the world around him. Then he's suddenly dragged back into action with the reappearance of Bucky, and all Stark technology blinking the message 'Who Am I?'.





	the duplicate of a man much better than I

**Author's Note:**

> As always, lots and lots of love for my wonderful beta, [wttlpwrites.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wttlpwrites/pseuds/wttlpwrites)  
> Thank you so much for not giving me any shit about my procrastination.
> 
> I was super lucky to get a piece of art that I loved, so kudos to [CaptainHoney](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainHoney/pseuds/CaptainHoney) for everything, especially their art! I was so inspired and thrilled. Thank you for letting me put words to your work.

The second apartment Steve lives in, after SHIELD falls, is smaller than the first, and still too big. He doesn’t like it much, but he doesn’t like Tony’s tower any better. Or--it’s the Avengers Tower now, he thinks.

Apparently, Natasha decides he needs some sort of personal touch, and brings him a pile of hand and body towels with his initials in the corner of each blue cloth. They’re soft, and Steve runs his hand against them when she hands them over.

“Grant, as in Ulysses S. Grant?” smirks Natasha as she hops onto one of the stools in the kitchen. The blue on the walls there is lighter than the towels, the white of the cabinets gleaming as mid-morning sun streams through the window. Outside is a view of an alleyway, then a building right across.

Steve shakes his head, one hand still patting the cotton. “Old family name,” he says. “I’m going to put these in the bathroom--make yourself at home.” As if he expected she would do differently.

He drapes one of the hand towels over the rack attached to the wall, and puts the rest inside the small bathroom closet. Also inside: an extra toothbrush, a straight razor, shaving cream, and hair pomade. More towels. One tissue box, three bottles of unscented shampoo (all different) and two bars of soap. Steve stares for a moment, then closes the door and returns to the kitchen.

Natasha is rummaging through his cabinets, the clink of kitchenware reverberating around the room. She doesn’t stop when Steve walks into the room, just brandishes a plain white plate at him. “Boring,” she says matter-of-factly. “Remind me to take you to IKEA some time.” Steve’s never seen Natasha’s apartment, isn’t even sure if she has one or if she just splits her time between the tower and various safe houses around the world. Even now, she seems to always be off on one mission or another, no matter that SHIELD has fallen. He doesn’t know what her decorating taste is like, but he suspects it’s as adaptable as everything about her.

She looks through his bowls and cups, everything in sets of eight, and then starts to go through his refrigerator. Steve’s not sure what to do, so he stands to the side, fiddling with the pockets of the blue jeans Natasha bought him, moving to stand by the window. He looks out, spots a few pigeons on the ground below.

With a huff, Natasha closes the door of his fridge. “You need to go grocery shopping,” she says. “And do it in a real supermarket, not the corner store.”

Steve flushes, continues staring out the window. The markets now are bright and big and bold and the first time he went he stood staring at the different types of milk for ten minutes before turning around and walking out the doors. Now he goes to the market a few blocks away, or orders online. It took him a while to figure out how to, but YouTube seems to have tutorials on everything, and Clint dropped in (literally) and just...decided to help out.

His skills with technology are better than he’d have Tony believe. It’s fun to see him get flustered when Steve pretends he doesn’t know how to turn a StarkPad on, or when he says he didn’t pick up Tony’s call because he thought it was the TV. He’s not as adept as he’d like to be, but he can use Google and Amazon and Wikipedia and YouTube--Steve’s not sure there’s much else he needs.

“Hey,” says Natasha, after the silence has gone on just past the tipping point of too long. “Have you talked to Sam recently?”

Steve thinks about last night, how his hand trembled around his cell phone, plugged in and on top of his nightstand. He thinks about how his fingers had tripped over the virtual keyboard, fumbled, too big for the screen. How his breath had trembled, and how he had let the cell phone fall back to the wooden surface. He hadn't know what obstacle had obstructed his path and thus, he could not remove it. Sam had said ‘anytime’ and Steve had failed to capitalize on it soon enough, and now doubted he would ever begin to.

“No,” Steve says. “Do you think I should send him a message? I think he’s pretty busy, catching up on all the work he missed.” It makes him uncomfortable to think about, how much he took and took from Sam during their trip across the world, chasing down stale leads and cold trails. The closest they ever got to Bucky was in Romania, and he still managed to slip away, like a leaf on the wind.

Finally, one night in a shitty motel halfway to nowhere in particular, Steve turned over in bed and whispered across the room, “I don’t think he wants to be found.”

Sam had taken a moment before responding. “Not yet.”

Two words, and Steve was heartbreakingly thankful for the simplicity of the response. They’d flown back to D.C. the next day.

In Brooklyn, late into summer, sun blooms across the pavement and Natasha steps behind him, placing a soft, cool hand on his bare arm. “Call him,” she says firmly. “He wants to hear from you.”

Had he plugged his cell phone back in? He’ll use the landline instead.

 

“Hold this, please,” Bruce says, though it comes out strangely around the screwdriver stuck in the corner of his mouth. He’s working behind one of the large screens in one of the large labs that dot the large lower levels of Avengers Tower. He looks to be fiddling with the cables, unplugging one thing and then another. He keeps turning from the outlets in the wall to that back of the large screen, turning dials and flipping switches with no obvious consequences. Obediently, Steve walks forward from the doorway and takes a piece of round metal, glass and wire poking out, from Bruce’s hand.

“Where’s Tony?” he asks. It’s not unfamiliar to see Bruce with the sleeves of his

collared shirt pushed up and his glasses smudged, but the grease on his fingers is an unusual touch.

Bruce removes his head from behind the board and squints over at Steve. “It’s Tuesday,” he says, as if that explains everything. It doesn’t. Bruce realizes this and shakes his head, pushing up his glasses. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget other people don’t live in my head.” This statement would be funny in a different context, in a different moment. “Tony has his board meeting every other Tuesday.”

“And he--goes?” Steve asks, still a touch confused.

Bruce shrugs, offering a small smile. “Only if Pepper makes him. Or he wants to show off.” He pauses for a moment. “Or if he’s really bored.”

Steve snorts and Bruce’s grin widens a tad. He holds a hand out for the screwdriver, and Steve passes it back over. Bruce’s head goes behind the screen again.

Steve had been hoping to catch Tony, ask him about a weird glitch on his phone, but he was content to wait. He didn’t have anything planned for the rest of the day.

He had called Sam, after Natasha had finished taking him shopping. Five bags of groceries later he had had to ask--what do you even do with avocado?

Sam had picked up pretty much immediately. The moment Steve had heard his voice, he’d felt better, and the phone call went from immediate plans to future plans and then devolved into bantering. Sam had signed off with “And that’s why you have to come to my grandma’s, man. Get me some grandkid points,” to which Steve had hesitantly agreed. He still wanted Sam to come up--not to stay, that would be selfish, but to visit, maybe. Steve missed him.

He hadn’t said that, though.

All of a sudden, the screen lit up with a buzz. “Ha!” Bruce exclaimed, and clambered to his feet. “That should do it.”

“What happened?” asks Steve, making his way to one of the lab stools and perching on top of it. He takes his cell phone out of his pocket and lays it face down on his thigh.

Bruce frowns, the ease from earlier gone. He shoves his hands in his pockets, tilts his head.

“I’m actually not quite sure,” he says. “A couple message boxes kept popping up, over and over, in the top right hand corner. Jarvis couldn’t tell where they were coming from, so Tony and I got down on our hands and knees and started fiddling with the system the old fashioned way. He just left before we figured it out.” Bruce sighs.  “Not like I actually did find out what was wrong. That--” He waves at the board with the screwdriver. “Was just me fixing what Tony had taken apart.”

Steve would laugh, but it's not funny. Not when-- ”The same thing happened to me,” he says.

Bruce’s eyes shoot up, dart towards Steve’s face and then down towards his phone. He steps forward, reaching a hand out. “May I?”

Gratefully, Steve hands it over. “They’re gone now, and I can’t get them back,” he explains as Bruce fiddles with the device. “But about--” He checks the clock above the lab station. “--three hours ago, I got three messages popping up on my screen, without a number, all saying the same thing.” He clears his throat and quotes. “‘Who Am I?’”

Without looking up, Bruce says “That’s the same exact thing that happened to every Stark-made electronic device with a screen in this building. We’ve gotten at least a thousand customer calls saying the same thing. They were up for about two minutes, and disappeared.”

“You couldn’t say that in the beginning of this conversation?”

Bruce has the grace to look a bit sheepish. “Neither Tony nor I wanted to present the problem to you without some sort of explanation or solution,” he admits. “And we don’t have either. There seem to be no ill after-effects, but...” he gives a short shrug, eyes still focused on the screen. “It’s sometimes hard to tell. Jarvis is still scanning for viruses, and we’ve sent out an electronic package to all Stark-made devices with--” Bruce stops short, looks up at Steve. He must look as confused as he feels, because Bruce gives him a small smile. “You don’t mind if I hold onto this for a little bit, do you?”

Steve thinks about how much he uses it, and then shakes his head. “No, that’s fine. Will Tony take a look at it when he gets back?”

Bruce snorts. “Tony is going to be obsessed with this until he finds out what happened. He’s going to take the whole building apart, right, Jarvis?”

“Regrettably so, Dr. Banner,” comes Jarvis’ voice. “In fact, he has cut his time at the meeting short and is flying back now.”

“Flying?” asks Steve.

Bruce chuckles, but before he has the chance to say anything, a loud clunking interrupts. As one, the two turn towards the door.

“Brucie, Capsicle, I’m home!” says Tony, lifting the faceplate of the Iron Man armor. “Didja miss me? Of course you did, I don’t even know why I ask. Oh, is that Cap’s phone? Here, let me--” he takes the phone from Bruce, flips it around in hands while still chattering maniacally. “You broke it, didn’t you? If you needed tech help, you could have just come to me! Here, let me show you how to turn it on.”

“Tony,” groans Bruce, interrupting. Tony smirks, but stops spinning Steve’s phone in his hands. “Steve’s here because his phone displayed the three messages.”

“Oh yes, our resident R2-D2. Our chat bot. Our Lost Boy.” Tony snorts. “‘Who am I?’ Basically on the verge of an existential crisis there.”

“Are you still sure it wasn’t a person?” says Bruce. “I was looking at--”

Science comes blathering out of Bruce’s mouth, and Steve starts to turn away. He’s not going to understand what comes next, he knows that much from having heard many of these conversations before. So he’s going to go, before they ask him a question about something he doesn’t understand. It just makes him even more confused about where he stands in this odd team, in this odd world.

 

Two days later, Steve is wiping down the kitchen counter. Firm strokes swab down the marble, and the smell of soap hangs thick in the air. Steve’s not thinking about particularly anything, and even though it’s a bright summer day, he feels chilled.

Suddenly, a shadow falls across the room. Steve reacts without thinking, spinning around to throw a plastic spray bottle of soapy water at the window. It hits the closed glass and explodes, drenching the cleaned kitchen in a mass of suds. But Steve can’t bring himself to care.

“ _Bucky?”_ he whispers, incredulous.

Outside, dressed in black leather, with a black bruise adorning his left eye and blood dripping from his nose, Bucky stands on the fire escape. He’s clearly injured-- still, one corner of his mouth quirks up.

“Hiya, Steve.” It’s just loud enough that Steve can hear it through the half-cracked window--a familiar voice that hits him hard in the chest, like the punch of a metal fist, like the realization he’s having an asthma attack. He stares. “You gonna let me in, or not?”

Steve shakes his head to clear it, and after realizing what he’s done, quickly nods. Then, at Bucky’s confused look, he almost runs to the window to fling it open. “Come in,” he says, with perhaps too much urgency. “Please.”

Bucky doesn’t move like he’s injured, quickly climbing over the windowsill and dropping onto the tiled floor of the kitchen. His thick leather boots don’t even make the slightest thumping sound. For a moment that stretches on and on and on, the two of them stand there, facing each other--Steve in a t-shirt and sweats, Bucky in black combat gear. Steve watches carefully as Bucky’s eyes seem to glaze over for a moment. Then he grunts, shakes his head, and is back on Earth again.

“Shower,” Bucky says, his voice gravelly. Steve jolts, shaken out of his thoughts. Bucky’s voice has gone from familiar to unknown. Bucky won’t meet his eyes, and instead he stares right below them at Steve’s cheekbones.

“Okay,” says Steve slowly, not sure how to respond to the abrupt change in tone. He’s worried, and getting more so by the minute. He hasn’t actually seen Bucky since--

He leads Bucky down the hallway. “Here,” he says, gesturing. He pushes the door to the bathroom open, and for a split second, all he sees is the _SGR_ towel on the rack on the wall. He winces, ready for a pointed jab.

But beside him, Bucky doesn’t say a word. He just stares, long black hair dangling in front of his face. After a few moments of silence, he turns to look at Steve, still not meeting his eyes.

“Thank you,” he says, and then pushes forward into the room. Steve steps back a bit, and Bucky quickly shuts the door.

Steve stares stupidly at lime green paint. The sound of the shower turning on jolts him out of it, and he steps backwards before turning and heading back to the kitchen. He looks in his cabinets for something he can make Bucky. He’s been trying to learn how to cook, but his freezer is stuffed full of more frozen dinners than he’d like to admit. He opens his refrigerator and grimaces at the group of energy drinks on the bottom shelf. He finally pulls out butter, along with a loaf of sandwich bread. He takes two of the pre-cut slices and throws them in the toaster. As Steve watches the bread slowly brown, he thinks about what Bucky’s been eating. What his stomach may not be used to.

“Shit,” Steve mutters under his breath, and puts the stick of butter back inside the refrigerator. The toast pops out and he plates it, then goes into the living room and sets the food on the coffee table. He frowns, picks the plate back up, and returns to the kitchen. He eyes his counter space and the metal stools, and returns to the living room. But what if Bucky feels trapped by the lack of windows? Steve starts to turn back towards the kitchen, then frowns, and decisively sets the toast down.

He sits on the end of the coach furthest from the door, and waits. He can hear the shower going. He feels-- _disconnected,_ like those aren’t really his thighs touching the patterned fabric of the sofa. Those aren’t really his hands, trembling.

It’s a while before the water in the bathroom shuts off. Steve’s not sure how long it takes--there’s a clock on the monitor beneath the TV but he doesn’t look at it until a bit into Bucky’s shower. Steve’s hearing takes in the creak of the shower handle turning, the rustling of clothing. With a small amount of horror, Steve realizes he didn’t give Bucky any clothing to change into.

He stands up, almost pushing the couch back with the force of leaping to his feet. But it’s too late. He turns towards the hallway to see Bucky, a blue towel clenched in his right hand, and otherwise completely naked.

He walks like some sort of large cat, Steve manages to note absently, as he watches the slide of water from Bucky’s wet hair down his collarbone and towards the v of his hips. He has several scars, new and old. He looks tired, detached, like he doesn’t quite know what’s going on. He marches down the hallway until he’s about three feet away from the armrest of the couch. He stops.

“Готов выполнить,” he says. His voice is raspy and monotone, not unlike the way he said ‘shower’ before. Steve’s heart drops to the soles of his feet.

“Bucky,” he says helplessly, and reaches out a hand. Bucky doesn’t even blink, just stands there. “ _Bucky.”_

There’s no response. The sick feeling in Steve’s stomach just gets worse--he didn’t know what to expect if he ever saw Bucky again, so he just tried not to picture anything at all. Maybe if he had, he could’ve prepared for this sort of disconnect. Maybe he would know what to do. Instead, he just feels completely lost.

Without any obvious solution, Steve takes a few steps forward, then reaches out and puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

The best way to describe it is to say Bucky reboots. His head droops for a split second, his eyelids flicker, and he’s _looking_ at Steve again. Steve fights the sigh of relief, just stares awkwardly as Bucky seems to take note of the towel in his hand, and flings it around himself. In the midst of the movement, he sees stare, and his whole face changes, crinkling at the corners of his eyes as he frowns dramatically. “This ain't the zoo, Rogers.”

“Don't do that,” says Steve without thinking. Bucky looks at him. “Don’t--don't _pretend._ ”

Bucky frowns and looks away. In one swift movement, he maneuvers the towel so it’s wrapped around his body, covering his shoulders and dropping down just past his hips, like a young child. “I’m not--” he starts, his voice a low rasp again, but halfway between Old Brooklyn and the monotone. His hair drips, and water is puddling at his feet.

“Let me get you some clothing,” says Steve when it becomes clear the Bucky isn’t going to continue. “And there’s toast. If you want it.” Bucky’s head doesn’t turn. He continues to stand stock-still, staring out as if he can see beyond the crème wall of the living room. “On the coffee table,” Steve finishes weakly, and when there is still no response, he reaches out to touch Bucky’s shoulder again.

This time though, Bucky flinches, his head whipping around and his body shrinking back. He seems to realize what he’s done before he’s even completed the instinctive movement, and his face goes from still to fearful in a matter of milliseconds. “Don’t,” Bucky grits out. He sidesteps Steve and marches over to the plate with toast. He bends over and grabs it, allowing one side of the towel to fall open. Steve swallows at the revealed span of slick skin, and then immediately feels ashamed. Bucky is either oblivious to Steve’s reaction, or doesn’t care--he picks a piece of toast up off the plate, the towel now clenched between his left upper arm and the side of his chest. He inspects the toast carefully, then takes a small bite. And waits.

It doesn’t occur to Steve until Bucky unfreezes and devours the rest of the slice that he was most likely ensuring the toast would stay down. He winces at the thought, almost imperceptibly, and still Bucky catches it. He blinks for a moment towards Steve, and then carefully places the plate back onto the table.

Steve can’t figure Bucky out. It’s like his personality is bouncing from wall to wall--he was Bucky from the ‘30s when he came in through the window, and now he’s going from Winter Soldier to someone Steve can’t even make sense of. The two of them stand there for a moment, staring at each other.

“I’m tired,” Bucky announces, and then waits, as if Steve’s going to say _no, you’re not._ Fighting the urge to hurl the plate at the wall of his living room, Steve nods. He has a guest bedroom, albeit an unused and probably slightly dusty one. At least the sheets are clean, and there’s a clear view of both the window and the door from the bed.

“Do you want pajamas?” he asks, moving around the coffee table towards Bucky. Bucky draws himself up, shoulders raised high and a blank expression on his face before letting some of the tension ease as Steve merely moves past him. He doesn’t respond to the question until they’ve trekked down the short hallway to the guest bedroom. The door is shut so Steve eases it open, and then stands aside to allow Bucky access.

“Do you want me in pajamas?” asks Bucky as he peers into the room. Steve frowns a bit. _Is this a test?_

“Only if you’re more comfortable in them,” he answers, a bit confused. Bucky’s shoulders go up again, just the tiniest bit, but enough for Steve to notice.

Again, he turns the question back on Steve. “Would you be more comfortable if I wore pajamas?”

“I don’t care, I just--” Steve knows immediately that that’s the wrong answer. Bucky turns around with fists clenched, chin jerked up high.

“If you’re going to punish me, just punish me,” he snaps. “I can remember any rules, but you haven’t given me any guidelines, and your rules don’t make sense.” Bucky looks shocked with himself the moment the words come out, and his face blanches, but he holds his ground.

Steve is completely lost. “Rules?” he tries, and thinks _we haven’t even had a real conversation yet._

“You didn’t give me clothes but now you want me in clothes, you let me shower alone, you gave me toast--”

“I don’t understand what I did wrong here!”

“I don’t understand what you want from me!” shouts Bucky. He looks distressed, so much so that Steve can’t help but reach out for him. Instinctively, Bucky draws back, turns his face away. Then he lets out the smallest whimper and snaps his head back around to face Steve, like he’s--like he’s waiting to be punished.

Steve feels sick. He doesn’t know what to do, he should have prepared, he should have asked Sam-- _S_ _am._ What would Sam say?

He doesn’t know. He’s not Sam. Currently, Sam is trying to get Steve to go see a therapist, but Steve comes from a world where men got home from war and dealt with the memories by drinking. Or killing themselves.

“I’m not going to punish you, Bucky,” says Steve, trying to keep his voice as level as possible. “I’m not going to force you to do anything that you don’t want--” _Does he know what it is to want?_ “--that you’re not comfortable--” _Does he remember what it is to be comfortable?_ “--that you don’t feel like doing.”

Too vague. Bucky obviously feels the same way, if the furrow of his forehead is any indication. Still, he makes no protest, just stands in the doorway, staring.

“Sorry,” Bucky finally manages to say. “Everything’s still so--” he gestures to his head and forces out a bitter choke of a laugh. “--fucked up.”

The sudden emergence of self-awareness is surprising, but then the whole afternoon has been surprising. Steve’s whole goddamn year has been surprising, and at least this surprise has some sort of silver lining.

He has nothing but the usual platitudes, words that can’t reach what he’s really feeling. “Take your time,” he offers and then, “I’m here,” and finally, a soft whisper as Bucky turns, the towel still only just wrapped around him, a few cuts still bleeding, “I missed you.”

There’s no tone to Bucky’s voice when he says, “I only just remembered how to miss.”

 

Steve doesn’t want to leave Bucky alone, but when he still hasn’t opened the door of the guestroom by mid-afternoon the next day, Steve gives up and goes to Tony’s.

He hits the floor of the labs, and it’s chaos. Assistants are running around, machines are beeping and wailing and yelling. Down the hallway, several lights are flashing, and Steve uses his bulk to his advantage as he pushes through, looking for Tony.

Steve finds him in one of the only rooms that is perfectly quiet. Tony stands in the middle of it, holographic screens hovering around him. Bruce is up against the wall, almost simultaneously manipulating a large floating tablet and a desktop computer. Steve feels his wrist being grabbed and he swings around to find Natasha.

“Where have you been?” she hisses. “Didn’t you check your phone? I was about to send Clint out to get you!”

Steve’s glad she didn’t, as it probably would’ve been a disaster. He imagines Clint walking into his apartment, seeing Bucky emerge from his room, and shooting him on sight. He fights down revulsion at the image.

‘What’s going on?” he asks, strolling into the room so that Natasha is forced to release his hand. He bypasses Tony, knowing that he’s not going to get a straight answer when the man is so immersed, and leans over Bruce’s shoulder. What’s on the screen is incomprehensible to him, so Steve steps back, knowing how much Bruce hates hovering. He stands against the wall with Clint, and asks it again. “What’s going on?”

Clint gives him a rueful grin. “A virtual fight. Not as cool as any of those arcade games. Nothing we can do but stand here.”

“Hurry up and wait,” says Steve as Natasha comes over. She nods her head sharply, obviously worried. They all hate this, the three of them, the warriors of the team. Steve gets antsy when there’s nothing to punch, nothing to hit.

They stand there as Tony and Bruce sit and pace, shouting incomprehensible words. At times Natasha seems to understand, miniscule signs of worry appearing on her face, and sometimes Clint seems to, a head tilt indicating optimal usage of his hearing aids. Steve doesn’t understand anything, lost in a fog of _future_ and he has to hold back the desperate urge to run home, to find Bucky and hold him close. If only it were that easy, if only he could bury himself in Bucky’s scent again.

Finally Tony breaks away from his holographic display, coming to slouch against the wall with the rest of the team. “Goddamn,” he mutters, and then again, louder, “ _Goddamn.”_

“You didn’t catch it,” says Natasha, her face smoothed over into a blank mask.

“There’s no connection between it and the internet, thank god, they screwed up on that. But it’s got superhuman strength, healing, the whole works. I can keep trying to hack it, but the download is complete, so--”

“I’m sorry, can someone explain to me what’s happening here?” says Steve, finally losing patience. Tony startles a bit, and his eyes refocus.

“You mean you didn’t--where were you?” he asks.

“Home,” says Steve, and doesn’t expand on exactly what he had been doing there. Tony squints at him for a moment, but evidently decides to accept it, because he launches into an explanation of what Steve missed.

“Remember how Hydra transferred Zola’s consciousness to a computer?” Steve raises his eyebrow, but Tony stops him from speaking with a wave of his hand. “Right, I know you do, I’m providing necessary background so you don’t interrupt me with questions just like you almost did. Once I’m on a roll, I’m on a roll! Anyway. _During_ that process I guess parts of Hydra decided that if they could upload a person to the internet, they could certainly download a person from the internet. In a sense. You understand I’m dumbing this down for you, right?” says Tony exasperatedly when he catches Steve’s look of confusion. “My arc reactor is stuttering because I can’t believe I have to put it this way. Was that harsh? That was a little harsh. Look, Cap, basically they decided if they couldn’t have you they could get as close as possible, so they translated the serum and the human body into what we call ‘code’ and downloaded that into a robot. A pretty advanced robot, whose parts Pepper is now sourcing, because the Black Market is a bitch when it comes to spreading Stark products illegally.”

“They downloaded me,” says Steve slowly, “into a robot.”

“Well,” says Tony, eyes lighting up. Then he catches Bruce’s eyes and shrinks back into himself. “Sure. Yes.”

“That’s the glitch that popped up,” says Steve. “‘Who Am I?’”

“Freaked me out,” grumbles Clint.

“Every Stark product with a screen,” says Tony thoughtfully. “Something went wrong. The intelligence came together for a short spark of life before they put the code in the handy dandy robot body. Wasn’t supposed to do that. Goddamn, we _should’ve_ been able to catch the code before they downloaded it and wiped it.”

“They locked me out of the servers,” says Bruce, coming to join the group. He wipes his glasses off, then sets them back on his face. “Jarvis is going back in, but I doubt it will help much.”

“It’s all in Star Spangled Banner 2.0, now,” says Tony. Then he takes a look at the faces around him. “No? How about Dudley Two-Right? NAME? I’d say Captain Soviet Russia but I’m saving that for our pal Winter when he shows up.”

Steve tries his very hardest to keep a straight face. At least no one’s looking at him.

“He’s not involved in this,” says Natasha. It’s more of a statement then a question, and Tony gives her a slight nod. “Hydra has always used him as blunt force, not in their IT department.”

“So he’s still on the run as far as we know, and also not our current problem,” interjects Clint. “Does anyone know when Thor is getting back?”

As if he had been cued, Thor comes in, flinging the door open with a delighted grin. “Ah, brethren!” His face falls when he takes in the scene. “What is the matter?”

“Debriefing, and then briefing,” says Steve, taking charge in the midst of the confusion, doing the only thing he knows how to do in this moment. Planning the next mission. “In the kitchen--let’s go.”

 

Tony offered him a room to stay the night, but Steve didn’t take it. Instead he bid the others good night and took the subway home. It’s dark when he finally climbs up to the apartment.

Steve falters with the keys at his door. He doesn’t know if Bucky will still be there, if Bucky will be an automaton, the Winter Soldier, the Bucky he knew from Brooklyn or some sort of--someone else. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t know what to do, and it’s killing him. Every time Bucky needs him, Steve fails. An unending cycle in which he’ll never balance the scales between them, never show Bucky how much he means to him, never pay back the ways in which Bucky saved him.

He sighs, and opens the door.

“Ah, Steve,” says Sam, calm even though there’s a gun pointing right at his face, and he’s tied to the couch. “Mind telling me what the Winter Soldier is doing in your apartment?”

“His name is Bucky,” is the only thing Steve can come up with. Bucky growls something in Russian, obviously aimed at Steve even though he doesn’t take his eyes off Sam.

“Not sure he seems to agree,” replies Sam wryly. “Perhaps you could convince him otherwise. Or perhaps you could consult me, a certified therapist, for some tips on what to do with your brainwashed buddy over here.”

“Think it’s a little late for that,” Steve says, taking a careful step forward. Bucky seems to utterly ignore him, but that doesn’t reassure Steve in the slightest.

“That would be my point. The point being, you could have called me earlier. I mean, what the hell man? You crash at my place, you trash other places with me, and then you’re back to New York without another word? Not cool.”

“Are we really going to do this now?”

“We could have done this earlier,” Sam says. “If you had called me.”

“I did call!” protests Steve. “We had a whole conversation!”

“Yes. In which you talked about going shopping with Natasha, your new prowess with the Internet, and then deflected all questions about yourself. I didn’t push, but man, if I had known what was going on…”

The banter seems to be doing something to Bucky. His brow has furrowed, and although the glare on his face is as frightening and intense as it was the moment Steve walked in, there’s an air of confusion.

“Bucky,” Steve tries, but there’s no response. He looks helplessly at Sam, who shrugs. The tiny movement seems to infuriate Bucky, who growls out “Stop.”

“We’re back to English from Russian, that’s great,” says Sam encouragingly, seemingly as much for Steve as it is for Bucky. “Can we move from pointing the gun at Sam to not pointing the gun at Sam, maybe?”

No response.

“Bucky, stand down,” says Steve loudly. Still, Bucky doesn’t move. “Sergeant, _stand down._ ”

The effect is almost instantaneous. Bucky’s presence had been too big for the living room, and now it shrinks as he lets the gun fall to his side and turns to stand at perfect parade rest, facing Steve. Then his face shows recognition, and he falls out of the stance as easily as he fell into it.

“Shit, _Stevie,”_ he says, voice rough and face bewildered. He takes one step forward and Steve reaches out--

Only to have Bucky collapse into his arms, shaking.

“Bucky!” Steve cries out, horrified. Then Sam is there, and the two of them carry Bucky to the bedroom Steve gave him just a day ago.

Bucky still shakes, keeps shaking as they lay him out. Sam is counting seconds under his breath, watching Bucky carefully. Steve isn’t just watching, he’s _staring_ , desperate.

“What’s going on?” he asks Sam. “What’s wrong?”

Bucky’s shaking finally dies out with one final full body shudder. Now it almost looks as if he laid down and went to sleep.

Steve knows better.

“I’d recommend taking him to a hospital, but at this point, I know better than that. And I guess there’s no point in recommending you bring him to Stark?” Steve frowns. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Has he done this before?”

“Sam,” says Steve helplessly, “He’s only been here a day. I don’t know anything about where he’s been or what he’s been doing. He came in here covered in cuts and sounding like the Bucky I knew back in Brooklyn. Then five minutes later he’s acting like someone I’ve never met. I gave him clothes and a room and he accused me of trying to trap him into some _punishment._ I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Shit,” says Sam. “Okay. That was a mild seizure. If he’s had one before, I would be worried, but since we don’t know, there’s no reason to panic. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s going through some sort of identity crisis, mixed with PTSD and the aftereffects of whatever those Hydra shits did to him.” They both look at Bucky. He’s almost peaceful this way. “That is, of course, an extremely simplified version.”

“Is he going to get better?” asks Steve softy. He finally gives in to his instincts, sitting on the side of the bed so he can stroke Bucky’s sweaty hair away from his forehead. It feels like it always did, just longer. He can feel Sam’s eyes on his back.

It takes Sam a minute to speak. “Depends on your definition of better,” he says slowly.

“I just want him to be safe. And happy.” _And with me,_ he doesn’t add, but he’s sure Sam can hear it.

“This could be a positive sign,” says Sam. “Everything coming back together and making sense--being able to take authority of his own self again--that’s gotta have some nasty side effects.”

“Yeah,” says Steve, stroking Bucky’s hair. “Okay.”

 

For dinner, Sam teaches him how to make lasagna.

“Now don’t go around sharing this recipe,” he warns. “Mama Wilson would come right after me with a wooden spoon and you don’t want subject me to that, do you?”

Steve laughs a little hollowly. He respects that Sam is trying to cheer him up, he just doesn’t feel like it’s working very well. “It sure would be a sight,” he says. Bucky is still sleeping, and Steve’s been fighting the urge to check in on him constantly.

The lasagna comes out well, far better than the frozen meals in Steve’s freezer or even that expensive meal he’d had at some Stark party a few weeks back. “It’s something about making it yourself that makes it better,” says Sam, catching Steve’s look.

“Really,” says Steve dryly, cutting off another piece of the pasta and loading it on his plate. “Maybe one day I’ll make my chicken soup for you and you can tell me what you think.”

“Your chicken soup was shit, Rogers, personal touch or no personal touch,” comes Bucky’s voice. Steve turns, and there he is, standing in the doorway, metal arm propped up against the wall. He looks tired, his shirt and sweatpants wrinkled and his hair in disarray.

“Is this some sort of Depression thing?” _Sam to the rescue._ “Please tell me that it is, and not just Steve’s inability to cook.”

“We boiled everything, remember?” says Steve, talking to both Sam and Bucky. Bucky’s lips curl up a tiny bit on one side, and Steve can feel his breath catch.

“Potatoes, vegetables, meat, anything we could find,” says Bucky, and he walks over to the table. He wobbles a bit, and seizes the nearest chair. “Woah,” and then, on an exasperated exhale, “Sit _down,_ Rogers.” Steve hadn’t even realized he’d stood up until Bucky spoke.

Bucky settles in his seat, then grabs for the lasagna dish. “What is this?” he asks, sniffing at it.

“Lasagna,” says Sam with a grin. “My mama’s lasagna, and _if you stick your fingers in that dish,_ I swear she’ll appear right before us wielding a wooden spoon and that look.” He gives an exaggerated shudder, and it works--Bucky’s smile grows just a teeny bit bigger.

Steve can’t stop looking at him. His eyes (the same gray-blue they’ve always been), his red lips, and his hair falling into his eyes. He looked older, more worn around the edges, but still. He was Bucky, no doubt about it.

Like with the toast, Bucky took a single bite of the lasagna, and waited a few minutes before piling more onto his plate. Then he ate like a starving man--which, thought Steve with an inner grimace, was entirely likely.

“Where have you been?” Steve finally asks, unable to hold it in any longer. “What have you been _doing_?”

Bucky looks away, still chewing. Steve can tell the moment his eyes land on the window where he came in that first afternoon. “I’ve been--” he starts, sounding hesitant. “I’ve b-been--” A low growl comes from deep in his throat, and he shakes his head. Hair flies around his face, like a dog trying to shake water from its fur. “I’ve been all around. Trying to get my act together. Trying to get _myself_ together.” He laughs hollowly. “Not a lot of self to pierce back together.” Then, offhandedly, “Killing some Hydra bastards.”

“We saw you in Romania,” offers Steve, heart breaking, not sure what to say.

Bucky bites his lip. “Yeah.” He takes a breath. “I saw you too. S’why I bolted.”

“You were scared?” Sam asks. Bucky shrugs.

“Wasn’t ready, more like,” he replies. “Still not, I just couldn’t--” He shakes his head. “I’ve lost so many things,” he says and his voice breaks a bit. “Places, people, things I can’t remember. Too many others that I do remember. I’m still fucked up, I’m probably always gonna be fucked up, and I don’t know if I can deal with that without offing myself if I’m still living in some shit warehouse with a cryo tube in the basement.”

“Bucky,” Steve breathes out.

“If you’re still not ready, we could set you up somewhere else,” Sam says carefully. “I work for the VA, I’ve got plenty of contacts all over. I could get you a nice job in Ohio--”

Bucky chuckles. “If I’ve gotta go Midwest, I’d rather go Indiana. But no,” He shakes his head again, but this time in strict denial. “New York’s where I belong.”

Sam turns to Steve, raises an eyebrow, a sort of _your turn now._ His turn for what? To convince Bucky he’s fine on his own, that they can live apart? He doesn’t want to do that.

“I’ve been--without you for over a year now,” says Steve slowly. “I understand--if you can’t--if you need to go, I can do it again.” _I’d just rather not._

“Without--” Bucky looks stricken. “You’re still without him!” he shouts. “You’re still without him, I’m not him, I’m not your Bucky, I’m some fucked up mess, Stevie, you’ve gotta understand that.”

“No,” says Steve adamantly, shaking his head. “You’re not him, but I’m not the Steve that old Bucky used to know. We’ve both changed--maybe for the better, maybe for the worst.”

“The worst,” Bucky mumbles, but Steve goes on as if he hadn’t heard him.

“We can’t go back,” he says. “We can never go back to before, but maybe--” he hesitates. “I’ll take all of you,” he says, with all the conviction he feels. “I’ll take all of you, every part, everything you’ve become, everything I can get.”

To his shock, Steve can see Bucky’s eyes water. “Yeah,” he says roughly. “Yeah, okay.” Then, after a small moment, Bucky gets up. He walks around the edge of the table, comes to Steve’s side, and leans down. Their faces are only inches apart.

“We did this, right?” asks Bucky softly.

Steve swallows. “Yeah.”

“I want to do it again.”

“Yes. Please--”

Bucky kisses him. It’s familiar and not at the same time, like all of Bucky right now--old Brooklyn Bucky mixed with Winter Soldier mixed with a stranger. He tastes like bliss, and Steve melts, resting hands against Bucky’s hips to keep from falling out of his chair.

The moment he grabs for him, Bucky powers backwards and away. “I can’t--” he says. “Feels too much like--being trapped.”

“We’ll work on it,” says Steve, and smiles. Bucky smiles back.

“We’ve got time,” he agrees.

“Hey,” says Sam plaintively. “I’m still here, you know.”

 

It’s a good thing Sam stays over, because at about two in the morning, Steve’s phone rings.

It’s actually plugged in and charged, thanks to Sam, and helpfully sitting on his bedside table. It’s a loud blaring sound, and Steve jolts into full wakefulness the moment it goes off. It’s not a normal ringtone, he knows immediately. It’s the Avenger emergency line.

He picks up. “Rogers.”

“We’ve got an emergency,” Natasha says, voice tense. “Supersoldier 2.0 has been activated.” A pause. “Bring Sam.”

“Supersoldier 2.0?” asks Steve, and then shakes his head. “Never mind. I’ll be there in ten.” He ends the call, leaps out of bed and yells, “Sam! Avengers emergency!”

He’s pulling his costume on when Bucky crashes through the entrance to his room. “I’m coming with you,” he growls.

“No,” says Steve immediately. “No way.”

Bucky blinks, like this is not the response he expected. “What? Why not?”

Steve pulls the zipper on his top up. “I’m not losing you again,” he says matter-of-factly. “You’re recovering, and I’m not going to make you fight anymore.”

“You’re not making me do anything, dumbass!” cries Bucky. “I’ve always watched your back, and if that’s the only thing I’m good for anymore--”

“Don’t say that,” says Steve sharply. “That’s not true--”

“If fighting has to be the only thing I know how to do,” Bucky continues relentlessly, “then it sure as hell is going to be fighting for you.”

Steve shakes his head. “Bucky, you flinched away when I touched you. You can barely eat, you switch from personality to personality, you collapsed _shaking--_ ”

“Sometimes it feels like I’ve been killing HYDRA since I was born,” says Bucky, fire in his eyes. “I can do this. Let me, Steve. Trust me, and put me on your team.”

Steve bites his lip. “I trust you,” he says softly. “Okay.”

 

So Steve shows up on the helipad with two others instead of just one.

“Woah,” calls Tony, the Iron Man suit distorting his voice. “Is that our very own Metal-Armed Badass? That being said, please let me look at that arm. It infuriates me that I don’t know how it works, and that someone out there does.”

“Not now, Tony,” says Steve. Beside him, Bucky’s reaction is hidden under his mask, the one he insisted on wearing. The rest of his uniform is done up from bits and pieces of his old costume and Steve’s clothing. It’s all black. “We’ve got a mission.”

“I can multitask,” grumbles Tony, but stalks closer to them anyway. “Steve 2.0--can I call him Steve 2.0?”

“No,” growls Bucky.

Tony flips his faceplate up to show the three of them an exaggerated face of shock. “I did that deliberately so you can see how surprised I am to hear you speak. And to see that you’re here! Where did you turn up? In Steve’s shower?” For some reason, Steve can’t stop the blush that rises to his cheeks. Beside him, Sam snorts. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, but the thought of Bucky in his shower reminds Steve of the full view of Bucky’s body he was treated to afterwards. “Can’t wait to hear that story, Cap. But you see my face? Pure surprise. How do _you_ feel about me taking a look at that gorgeous arm?”

“No,” growls Bucky again. Steve represses the urge to grin.

Tony mock pouts. “Fine. As I was saying, Bruce and I had assumed that our fun downloaded friend had to be--well, let’s say ‘activated’--before Hydra could put him into action.” _Like a toy soldier,_ Steve thinks a little bitterly. “Thanks to Jarvis’ vigilance, we have real live footage of Supersoldier 2.0 being transferred from computer to code into a real live human body, and, uh, ‘activating’ immediately.”

“So no prep. We’re just going right in,” says Steve. “Has there been an attack?”

“Well, no,” says Tony. “The Avengers Emergency call was really just to get you to the Tower.”

“Aw man, seriously?” Sam says. “That thing interrupted my beauty sleep. I could be sleeping right now. You know what that is?”

“But,” Tony continues, “there’s certifiable reason to believe that Steve 2.0 is going to come after Steve 1.0--that’s you, by the way. We just need to stop the problem before it starts.”

Steve frowns, and looks away, off the side of the building’s top and into New York. Sam starts asking Tony something, but Steve only half pays attention. He understands the logic of what Tony is saying, and of course he wants to kill all the ‘Hydra bastards’ that he can, but at the same time, he wants to save as many people as he can. If they go straight in, there’s no guarantee that everyone they’ll be attacking will be their enemies.

“Don’t be stupid, Steve,” says Bucky. His voice is low and raspy, on the edge of Winter Soldier. “He’s right. Maybe they’re planning on coming in a year, maybe it’s tomorrow. But they’re sending him to you no matter what. They can’t resist.”

The words send a chill down Steve’s back. He looks away from the sight of sprawling New York to his oldest and newest friend. Before the war, Steve could pick Bucky out in a crowd just by his stance. Now he suspects that if Bucky didn’t want Steve to see him, Steve wouldn’t. And neither would anyone else.

“Right,” says Steve softly. Then, louder, striding past Tony to where the rest of his team waits, “Wheels up in five.”

 

Tony flies ahead of them the entire way, but Sam is stuck inside, his wings not quite fast enough to keep up with the jet for an extended period of time. “I’ll work on that,” Tony assured him when he had told Sam to board along with everyone else. Besides that little plot twist, it’s an uneventful trip, no more than three hours.

They land in the mountains and Clint exits the cockpit to join them in the back. All of the Avengers’’ heads are bent over a holographic map that displays the area and as much of the bunker as Jarvis could figure out.

“Got it?” Steve asks him. Clint nods, and in his ear, Tony gives an exasperated sigh.

“You’ve repeated the plan at least three times, Cap, I think we’ve all got it.”

Beside him, Steve sees Bucky flinch. He’d taken the comm offered to him, but is obviously uncomfortable with it. From the files, Steve knows that the Winter Soldier was treated as more of a lone hunter with a handler than a pack animal. Still, Steve doesn’t ask if Bucky’s alright, or tell him he doesn’t have to wear the earpiece. Steve knows better than that.

“Yeah,” says Sam, kind but teasing. “Take a breath, man.”

“Hey, next time we can go fight the version of you that’s been downloaded from a computer, and I’ll tell you to take a breath,” says Steve, allowing his lips to curl up slowly.

Sam groans. “Oh, no thank you. One of me is plenty enough.”

“Too much,” Bucky mutters, which startles a laugh out of both Sam and Steve.

“I’m going to get you for that,” threatens Sam.

“You’re not on my team,” Bucky says matter-of-factly, and that statement gets the team back on track.

They file off the plane one by one, slipping over one side of the hill to the small bunker, almost hidden by a thick swath of trees. The objective here is stealth--get in, find Hydra’s newest project, dispatch him, and get out without anyone noticing. There’s been no concrete information on how populated the base is, and as much as Steve wants to get rid of all of Hydra, he knows when it’s more tactical to keep the mess to a minimum.

Tony’s air support, Bruce is backup. Natasha and Thor are taking the east side of the bunker and  Sam has folded in his wings and is taking west with Clint.

Meanwhile, Steve and Bucky are going in from the south side. Entering is easy enough, breaking the lock on a steel trapdoor buried in a rock only three paces from the bunker’s shielded back entrance. From there, they wind their way through a tunnel with metal walls and a dirt floor. Steve has to hunch over to stop his head from hitting the ceiling. Behind him, Bucky is soundless, and Steve checks at least twice to make sure he’s still there.

They come out into a white hallway, with a sterile blue-green floor and fluorescent lights. At each end of the hallway there’s a door, with multiple doors along the walls as well.

Steve listens quietly for a long moment and then says, “There’s no one here.”

“Doors,” rasps Bucky, and without another word, they start out at opposite ends.

Steve finds a storage closet, an office, and some sort of lab--all deserted--before Bucky says “Captain,” and Steve turns to find him standing in front of a door, near the middle. He goes over. It’s locked.

“Two labs and a closet,” Bucky reports, his voice monotone. “None locked.”

Steve nods, accepting the information, and taps his earpiece.

“Bucky and I are in,” he reports. “No sign of any Hydra. We’re about to investigate the only locked room in a hallway of open rooms.”

“There’s a pause, and then, “Odd,” says Natasha. “Need backup?”

Steve doesn’t even hesitate. “No, it may be nothing. Besides, I’ve got my backup.” _I’ve got my Bucky._ He shoots a quick grin over at his partner.

Over the comms, Tony groans. “That’s disgusting. I may be sick. Clint, back me up here.”

“No chatter on the comms,” Steve says, before the teasing can get anymore out of hand. He watches happily as Bucky’s eyes scrunch at the corners, a sure sign that he’s at least slightly amused.

Steve lets Bucky’s metal hand deal with the lock, and the two burst into the room, side by side.

On the floor are three dead Hyrda agents, necks cleanly snapped. In a chair, next to a whole mess of cables running from a bank of computers, is a man.

He’s muscular and dark, tall and broad in the shoulders, and looks nothing like Steve. Still, there’s no doubt as to who he is.

“Hello,” says the man. “I’d offer you a seat, but the only one available is the one I’m sitting in.”

Steve taps his earpiece again. “Found him,” he says shortly. “Come find us.”

“What?” squacks Tony, and then the others start talking. Steve switches off his comm. Next to him, he sees Bucky reach up to his ear and do the same.

“Him,” says the man slowly. “Yes, I suppose so. This body is male, and you are male, and I am somehow you, but not.” He laughs bitterly, and Bucky flinches while Steve takes a whole step back. The voice doesn’t quite match, but the laugh is most certainly Steve’s. It’s unsettling, to say the least.

“Something is wrong,” says this new supersoldier. “I don’t feel quite right, and I don’t like it. Why?”

“Why did you kill these men?” asks Steve.

“A question for a question? We can play that game. Because they told me my mission was to obey them and kill you. I said I’d rather not, and they disagreed with that proposal. Thanks to my code, the supersoldier code, I’m unusually strong. It was rather easy. Funny how something they engineered to be their servant in all things fails them anyway.”

“Just as we have,” says Bucky. He sounds almost interested.

“I heard about you,” says the coded man thoughtfully. “The Winter Soldier. You got out.”

“Yeah,” says Bucky roughly. “Eventually. I got out.”

“They made me, but they made me wrong. Why? What am I?”

“You’re supposed to be me, we think,” Steve starts to explain. “They basically coded a supersoldier into the computer and downloaded it into a human body. That’s you.” He’s sure Tony would be flabbergasted at the too-simple explanation, but honestly the only part Steve understands is that this whole program was based on uploading Zola’s brain, something that still gives him the chills.

“Code is fallible,” says the man thoughtfully. “A misplaced zero, an extra one, a wrong letter--anything could happen.”

“There was a sort of--distress signal when you came online,” says Steve hesitantly. “You said, ’Who Am I?’”

“Did I?” says the man. He sounds almost delighted. “How odd. I’m sure they weren’t expecting that.”

“I’m sure they weren’t expecting this,” says Bucky, his voice losing some of its depth. He gestures to the dead Hydra agents.

“So you have no desire to hurt us?” asks Steve. “Or anyone else?”

The man blinks slowly, a small smile still on his face. “Only slightly. I am a program after all, there must be some will to follow my masters. Perhaps that’s the problem. My code is not all in line. My brain is not with my heart. Your heart.”

“My heart?” asks Steve, a little stunned.

The man nods. “They took you and they took themselves and they mashed it all together into me. Two opposite ideological stances can not possibly reside in the same body. What were they thinking?”

“They probably weren’t,” mutters Bucky. The coded man looks delighted.

“I like you!” he says. _You’re not the only one,_ Steve wants to say. Maybe he was right about having Steve’s heart. “That’s new. What a strange feeling.”

There’s a long pause. “What now?” asks Steve. He’s still half listening for a troop of Hydra soldiers to come crashing down the hallway into the room. So far, nothing.

“You have a team,” the man says thoughtfully. “I don’t think there are many men here. I haven’t seen many at least. I’m sure it won’t be long before they’re down here too. Especially as you said ‘Come find us’.”

“You could come with us,” says Bucky suddenly. “The killing Steve thing is not an issue.”

“Hey!” says Steve indignantly, but it makes the man smile.

“They told me to kill Steve, too, but I didn’t, I got out. Let us help you get out too.”

“And do what?” asks the man.

“You want to know who you are,” says Steve. “We can help you figure that out. Get you a job, an education, give you opportunities--there are multiple opportunities for--”

“For what?” asks the man. “A coded man? The bad duplicate of a man much better than I will ever be? I don’t think so. I don’t see a good path ahead of me in life, let alone a good path out of this bunker. No, I don’t want that.”

“Then what?” asks Steve.

“I feel... wrong. I can’t explain it. Something wrong in my code,” says the man distantly. “I don’t even have a name. Something’s wrong.”

“Tell us,” says Bucky, almost desperately. “I got out, we can help you out. You’re one of us.”

“I don’t think so,” says the man. His mouth is still turned up at the corners, and his eyes flick toward the ceiling like he’s seeing something the rest of them can’t. “No, I don’t think so.” He then looks directly at the two of them, fixing his eyes first on Steve’s and then Bucky’s. There, he lingers. “Neither of you are me, and I am not you. But somehow--” he sighs and shakes his head. “Or is that the code? Nevertheless, if no one else does, I think you can get out. You are out.”

“Yeah,” says Bucky. “I’m out.”

“Interesting,” says the man. “If I ever meet you again, you’ll have to tell me what that’s like.” Then, his smile stretching even wider across his face, he grabs a small pistol from the table on which the computers are sitting and shoots himself in the head.

There’s utter silence, the ring of the pistol like a church bell whose echo stays long after the actual sound has ended.

“Fuck,” says Bucky, turning to Steve. “Shit, Steve--” He rips off his mask, and Steve falls into his arms.

Of course, that’s when the rest of the Avengers come piling in.

 

Sam stays at the Tower after mission debrief, but Bucky and Steve head home.

Almost like the first day, there’s silence between them, and Bucky heads almost immediately to the shower. It’s a different sort of silence, but silence all the same.

They don’t know why Steve 2.0--the other supersoldier--the coded man--killed himself. Tony cites a mistake in the code, as does Bruce. Natasha thinks Hydra programed a kill switch, Clint suggested some sort of inner conflict frying him like a circuit board, and Sam merely said that depression makes people do all sorts of things, and it’s a genetic condition. Steve squirmed uncomfortably at that.

Neither he nor Bucky had offered an opinion. Neither of them were willing to dive deep enough into their own psyches to see what thoughts they had passed into this doppelganger just through the virtue of being themselves.

Steve’s sitting on the couch when Bucky comes out of the shower, the blue SGR towel properly wrapped around his waist this time. His hair is dripping, but he still comes and sits next to Steve.

“Hi,” says Steve.

“Hi,” says Bucky, and smiles a little at him. “You alright?”

Steve looks down at his hands. “Getting there,” he admits.

Bucky nods. “Yeah, me too.” He pauses. “That was messed up. Not as messed up as some stuff, but.”

Steve snorts, an undignified sound. “You can say that again.” Bucky grins, and starts to open his mouth, but Steve pushes him over before he can. Laughing, Bucky goes down, but not before pulling Steve down with him.

They land with Steve half sitting, half perched over Bucky’s damp chest. Their faces are just inches apart.

“We’re both a little messed up,” says Steve. “But--I’m glad you’re here.”

“You can say that again,” says Bucky, mock seriously.

Instead, Steve kisses him. They have time to say many things again, to discuss this mission and what they’re going to do now, and what they did apart. But for right now--

Steve kisses Bucky. And Bucky kisses back.

 

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, my [tumblr.](http://yourblueeyedboys.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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